[ad_1]
In the story "The light is like water" Gabriel García Márquez tells the adventures of Totó and Joel, two children who, at night, break the bulbs of their house and navigate between the waves of light that gushes from them. 19659003] "A stream of golden light as fresh as water began to come out of the broken bulb, and they let it run until the level reached four palms." Then they cut the power, took the boat out and sailed to the scene, so fantastic that it was, not far from reality.
Scientists studying quantum phenomena have shown that light, under particular conditions, can behave as a flowing liquid and ripples around obstacles that it encounters, such as the current of a river between the stones.
Left: Light meets an obstacle before being a superfluid. Right: light encounters an obstacle after having been transformed into superfluid
How do they do it?
"Liquid light" is a very particular substance. It is neither a solid nor a plasma and does not behave exactly like a liquid or a gas.
Scientists call it Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) and consider it the "fifth state of matter"
. , the particles synchronize and move in unison, forming a "superfluid".
"It looks like any other liquid or gas, but with special properties, all of whose parts are related," he says. Daniele Sanvitto, researcher at the Institute of Nanotechnology of Italy
The superfluids do not create waves and undergo neither friction nor viscosity.
Liquid light can revolutionize the way the one who transmits information and energy
They have a "collective behavior," says Sanvitto. "It's like a group of dancers doing the same moves or walking at the same time."
Thus, a common liquid, meeting a wall, would bounce, but a superfluid, like liquid light, would circulate along the wall
"If you throw a jet of these against a wall, it Will climb in any direction and will eventually reconnect after the obstacle, "says Sanvitto
What is the light for? liquid
Until a few years ago, superfluids could only be reached at temperatures close to absolute zero (-273 ° C), but in 2017, Sanvitto and his colleagues were able to produce liquid light at room temperature
Bose-Einstein condensate may be the key to a new generation of optical computers [19659003] This was done using mixtures of light and matter, called polaritons.
the first step for t "Up to now, experiments with BEC have been performed only on a small scale in laboratories, but researchers see great potential for transmitting information and energy without waste
For the moment liquid light can only be created in laboratories
An example would be the creation of optical computers, which can take advantage of the interaction of light particles without the problem of the dissipation or heating of common computers.This will make them much faster and consume less energy.
This technology could also revolutionize the handling Lasers and Solar Panels Even though scientist Michio Kaku mentioned it in an interview with This Week in Science, there are those who think that in the future BEC could lay the groundwork for teleport er objects.
For the moment this is only possible in the imagination. Once it was in the story by García Márquez & mr;
[ad_2]
Source link
